User talk:Aleal
MuzikJunky Hey, dude. Just so you know what's up with MuzikJunky, a number of his edits didn't check out. They were either verifiably false or extremely questionable. So after the 4th or 5th "undo" I just started rolling back his contributions. I'm not all that trusting of his additions at this point. I've left him a message on his talk page, so I'd like to see how he responds. Thanks for catching the one that was verifiable though. —Scott (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC) Ahm nahm nahm nahm nahm nahm! Happy National Cookie Day, Andrew! Hanukkah also starts tonight, so have some kosher cookies! Anyway, how did you stumble across the French Muppet LP? That's incredible that they actually dubbed the songs. I've always wondered why most foreign LP's are in English, when the shows were always dubbed into the local language. I hope that means that there are more out there! I'll probably start a rough page for TMS2 later this week, if somebody can do the picture. I love reading the titles, especially "Le sermon sur la nudité"! Merci beaucoup for your wonderful find! -- Ken (talk) 02:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC) Jane Austen Was the other Today on MW article I considered using, funnily enough. Why don't we put her in "tomorrow" (Dec. 3)? Ok, so it could be today also - I wasn't sure how to handle the need for four new "todays" in three slots; I figured we could add in two tomorrow and at least be a little less behind for the moment... -- Wendy (talk) 01:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC) :Yeah, I was trying to spruce Austen up a little first, and then I was going to add it (along with The Perry Como Winter Show, and was undecided on the third; looking over the noms, Bruce McSpruce looks timely), but I like your choices. I'm glad Old-time radio finally got up there. And I agree that it's better to add two tomorrow (probably late in the evening, so the current bottom two can stay up awhile) than try to cram in four, and then we'll just have to keep a closer eye on it (I'm having some really frustrating connection issues myself, and had a power outage, otherwise I would have fixed Austen 5 hours ago!) Actually, now that Danny's not around much (and Scott doesn't always remember either), and given how slim the remaining backlogged nominations list is, one of us might want to post a "Current Events" notice, encouraging people to nominate articles again. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC) ::The Perry Como show is a good one (and I finally learned who Joey Heatherton is after listening to They Might Be Giants sing about her for a couple years!). I'd like to do Sinterklaas for December 5th. I also agree on the Current Events request; we could especially use some merchandise and specials that are season appropriate. -- Wendy (talk) 02:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC) :::Don't forget that Wednesday's the wiki's second birthday, too! I'd like to see something celebrating that on the front page, like you guys did last year. Too bad Scott and Danny are swamped right now! -- Ken (talk) 02:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC) ::::Awesome. I'm once again amazed at the connections you've managaed to dig up for Jane Austen. —Scott (talk) 04:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC) Foreign links Hey, something has been bothering me, and I don't know what to do about it. I've been really trying to clean up the Dutch albums lately, and have them match the US ones. But should we link the characters to our material? For example, if a Dutch album has a dubbed version of Rubber Duckie on it, and the "Ernie" next to it links to "our" Ernie, does that make sense, given that the Dutch Ernie is a little different in Holland, as is Bert? For that matter, does it even make sense for the Dutch-only Ernie and Bert albums to be linked to our Ernie and Bert, since our character pages are based off of Jim and Frank's (and Eric and Steve's) characterizations of them? Have we even talked about whether cross-linking foreign albums to US characters where the songs are dubbed, or performed by a different character in another country (for example, apparently Ernie and Bert do Just 3 Colors on Dutch albums, instead of Big Bird and Oscar), or even unknown to US audiences, makes sense? I hope this makes sense. -- Ken (talk) 22:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC) :I think it makes sense. After all, they started there, and even with the different voices or alterations, it's still Ernie, so I don't think that changes. But notes on altered characterizations or backgrounds are worth including on the album pages, as examples of how the characters have been "localized." If a song is sung by different characters, that should be noted too. Or, and I haven't done much with it, but this is stuff you can explore putting on International Ernie and so on (which we only link to right now for name changes, like "Enrique," "Ernest," etc.) On International Elmo, there's a brief note about the fact that in Germany the character was originally a female "Elma," until the puppet gained prominence. As it stands, the pages only track countries/shows, voices, and name translations, as applicable, but in cases where differences are distinct enough and notable enough to expound on, I think that could be worth a paragraph on the page (or, in some cases, on the main character page; Bert's Uncle Rudolf and obsession with books about pencils named "Zipje" and "Zopje" is a significant enough departure to be worth a seperate section on his main page, whereas other differences, such as if in one country his pigeon is named "Maritzke" or something, would be less noteworthy as far as fundamentally affecting the character). That's my thoughts. Feel free to raise the question elsewhere, though, like on the character pages or international pages or the page for the album in question. For what it's worth, I doubt anyone else would feel that it's useful to unlink Ernie or create a seperate page for Dutch Ernie as a different character; but I think most would agree that these changes are interesting and should be recorded, so the issue becomes where they should be noted. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC) ::Thanks. I'll have to go home and think about the kinds of changes that I've been running across. My time is up in 4 minutes, so I've got to go. I'll write more tonight. Hope your equipment is running okay! -- Ken (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC) Question Do you think we need a Rowlf the Dog Discography? I don't want to step on Brad's toes, but I don't know why he gave him one. If we're going to do that, why shouldn't everybody get one? Especially since the Rowlf one not only lists his solo album, but it lists tracks on group albums like the John Denver Christmas album. Since the Muppet universes are so musical, practically every character has a listing of famous songs they did. I don't want to be mean and delete something that somebody likes, but this caught my eye since it was in the Discography category, and everything else there was related to a show. What do you think? -- Ken (talk) 03:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC) :That sounds like something that needs to be asked as a talk page on the article, or at Category:Filmographies, since it's actually a larger issue (as you'll note, the category is in fact a mixture of related lists which aren't necessarily strictly "filmographies"). But see Talk:Rowlf the Dog Filmography, for a long discussion which basically gave rise to that. With other "filmography" pages, the point is a bit lost. Personally, if there's enough to warrant a larger stand-alone page as a "discography," I don't object, but editing Rizzo the Rat Filmography today, it seems odd to include the albums and books there. I'd think they should just go on the character page if its a handful, or spin off otherwise. For example, Big Bird Filmography is purely that, with Big Bird Books taking care of the illustrated stuff. So go ahead and raise the issue on either the article or category's talk page, and see how everyone else feels. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:26, 2 December 2007 (UTC) ::Well, see, I didn't even know you had those other pages about character songs. So I think the answer is actually pretty simple: Just rename that page "Rowlf the Dog Songs", and move it over there. That way, those pages will all be together, and the Discographies will all be the same picture chart format. Can I move it, or do you want to? -- Ken (talk) 04:23, 2 December 2007 (UTC) :::That sounds like a fair solution, but it's still a good idea to mention it on the talkpage. Unless it's grammatically or factually incorrect, we decided it's always wise to discuss article title changes on the talk page, just so it doesn't catch the original editor off-guard or potentially lead to any back and forthing. -- Andrew Leal (talk) ::::Okay, I brought it up on the talk page. What are you working on? I see you're putting in a bunch of pictures. After church tomorrow I'm going to work on some more record stuff at the library, where it's faster. Hopefully soon I won't have to do that anymore! By the way, Merry Advent Season to you, and please e-mail me your address! -- Ken (talk) 05:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC) :::::I've been working on International Character Translations pages, but keep having connectivity issues (my Verizon broadband card is not working properly, and it's taking awhile for the tech support people to decide whether or not to send me a replacement). Pages keep not sending, and when I go back, the original text is lost. It's taken me about two minutes just to post this. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 06:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC) ::::::Boy, it seems like you've been having computer troubles all year. I'll be praying that everything works out for you! -- Ken (talk) 21:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC) Sesamo Apriti Hey Andrew -- I know you have worked pretty hard on the international voice actors. I found a web page for the Sesamo Apriti (album); if you click through on the songs they give the voice artists (which I've dutifully copied over for what it's worth). Unfortunately almost none of the character names make much sense to me either, but I thought I'd pass it along in case it is of use. My guess is, since they did the original stuff in 1971, they may have used completely different voice actors by 1978, but I'm not sure. Incidentally, I discovered that "The Muppets" = "I Babau" (that part I'm sure about at this point) and according to at least one website out there, and the only one really discussing the matter at all that I found, Babau is the name of some monster in a fable. Which is pretty wild if it's true. -- Wendy (talk) 02:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC) :At least a few of the same voices. I found the resume for one of the voice actors, Edoardo Nevola. And actually, this *could* clear up a lot, since it notes who sang what, once I figure out what the songs are supposed to be (I think the one sung by Bob and two others is supposed to be "The People in Your Neighborhood," since they appear to be a dentist (dr. Trapano="Dr.Drill") and a driver (autista Battista). As a nice touch, the latter is voiced by Roberto del Giudice, who dubbed Miss Piggy. So the album looks like it might have a mix of the original voices and people who were dubbing Il Muppet Show (Kermit, whose name I can make out in the full cast list, which doesn't necessarily correspond to the song info since it seems to include some just spoken tracks, is credited to Willy Moser who voiced him on Muppet Show but not the other). Oh, and Jimmy Fontana and Wilma Goich, the stuff in parentheses for them isn't character names, or vice versa; they just seem to be showbiz folk who performed under different names (in Wilma's case, Vianello is her married name). I'm pretty sure now that "Bingo Rock" is either Little Chrissy or Little Jenny, given thr rock group backup, but I can't figure out what the original Jeff Moss song is supposed to be (it translates as "I will not go"; the one with Ghiottencello and others is "I like the P," also given as a Jeff Moss song). I'll try to work on it later. Right now I'm hungry and frustrated and depressed. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC) ::I wondered about Jimmy, Wilma, and Nicola. I didn't put in song translations because I wasn't sure of all of them, but I can guess at a bunch. "The People in Your Neighborhood" was my guess also for the Bob song. I think, "Mi piace la "P"" = My Favorite Letter. "Volo" = "Flying", which is an ascap entry (#360144176) for Jeff Moss although we don't have a page yet. I was stumped on "Non me va" and "Il Calendario". For Raposo: "L'uovo e la gallina" = "Chicken or the Egg", "Famiglie"="A Family", "Canguro No"="Kangaroo Blues". Then I had a couple of guesses: "L'importante è mangiare" = "Everybody Eats" and "Dormi dormi"="Everybody Sleeps". Finally, "Vecchie auto" is an old car, "Fringuello fa il nido" is something about a bird (a finch in fact) making (?) a nest; "Topolini" means mice of some sort, and "Corri, Corri" should be something like "Run, Run" but I can't figure out the songs. I have no idea at all about "Enne Enne" unless it's an N-song with the sound spelled out, and the "Ninna nanna del koala" is also a blank. ::I'm a little startled actually at the songs that made it in. ::Sorry you're not feeling well. Eat! Sleep! -- Wendy (talk) 04:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC) :::I hope you feel better soon, too! :::By the way, can I call you on Wednesday night? Let me know! -- Ken (talk) 03:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC) Image:1974emmys.jpg Dude... amazing photo! Great find! —Scott (talk) 01:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC) :Thanks, it's actually one of the easter eggs on Old School Volume 1 (and practically the only one not on the Wiki). I'm revamping both primetime and daytime Emmy pages right now, since they're full of errors, omissions, and odd formatting. Also, later on, I'll scan an image from my book on the Emmys, showing Big Bird with Dick Cavett at the 1970 ceremony (when the show was nominated, along with the primetime shows, for outsanding new series, but somewhat ironically, lost to Room 222, the drama about high-school teachers). -- Andrew Leal (talk) Images Happy Thanksgiving! I just popped on here on my way to ktla.com, because Channel 5 here in LA is going to have a 60th Anniversary retro marathon of old TV shows and cartoons this weekend, and I need to check their schedule. If you go to their website, and click on the link at the bottom, they've got a bunch of old theme song clips to watch. I immediately thought of you, because there's a bunch of cartoon ones mixed in with the old TV shows. Anyway, when you get a chance, can you explain how the images work? I'm confused as to when you use "frame", "thumb", and when to use the 300px on an album page. I've tried to change a couple of them, and they didn't work, but I can't remember what I did. I'm noticing that on the Sesamstraat section, some pictures are too big, and some are too small, so I wanted to fix them. Thanks! -- Ken (talk) 18:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC) :Basically, if the image is exactly 300px, or smaller, use "Image:blank|frame." If it's larger, use "Image:blank|thumb|300px." Always put the thumb first, otherwise it won't work. And thanks for the heads up re KTLA! I'm mildly miffed that my VCR setting failed to tape the Macy's Parade (I've missed it the last two years; no NBC reception in Syracuse). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 18:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC) ::That's too bad. I always forget about the Macy's parade. Out here, the Rose Parade is what everybody's already talking about. Thanks for the image help, but I'm still confused. What do you do when there's no px number on the page, and then when you look at the file itself, there are 2 numbers? (Something X something) I guess I'll have to write down what I see on the album page, and what each image's file says, so I don't forget. Oh yeah, I knew I wasn't going crazy! El Patito is on Fiesta Songs! I never got it, because you get about half of "Sesame Mucho!", and the rest is recent stuff that I never got into. Now I'm wondering how long you'll be able to find Sony Wonder stuff until Koch begins production. -- Ken (talk) 18:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC) International stuff Hey, Andrew! I've got a free evening, so I thought I would go through the Sesamstraat songs before the category gets bigger. I think there were only about 5 duplicates before you told Paul not to create songs for translations. So I was thinking. I'd like to put all the information we have about a song's translations on the US page. For example, Rubber Duckie already deals with the Spanish version, and I think the Hebrew version's mentioned too. So do you like doing it that way, or do you want to make an International Rubber Duckie page? I'm not sure how I feel about any of this yet, since I'm still so new to the foreign stuff. What do you think? -- Ken (talk) 03:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC) :I just made a move and I'm working on International Rubber Duckie (and I plan to do the same for Paul's Dutch "People in Your Neighborhood" page; in fact, I have a clip from a recent Plaza Sesamo version). I honestly think that works much better than sticking it all on one page (unless it's a song where we only know of one or two countries/albums where it's been translated, then go ahead); the notes on the Spanish/Hebrew version can and should stay, though, since those specific releases were aimed primarily at US audiences. And re an earlier talk page comment which I didn't get to, I definitely don't think lyric translators belong on the original song page, anymore than we'd list the Dutch voice of Herbert Birdsfoot on his page. That can go on the album page, or the international song page. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC) ::Okay. I didn't know that the Hebrew version was made for a US audience. I always thought it was made for the Israeli co-production. (I've never seen it, so I'll have to find it on YouTube or something.) Anyway, I went back and added a little to the Spanish version, because I think that was the only time a Muppeteer re-recorded a song in another language, but it's a different arrangement, so they couldn't use Jim's Spanish vocals for the clip, like they can if somebody dubs their vocals on top of the original instrumental track. By the way, can you check Rubber Duckie's page? When I added some text, the 45 picture sleeve disappeared, and I wasn't sure if it was me. If it's too hard to fix, just revert it. I wasn't quite happy with what I wrote in the Spanish section anyway. Thanks! -- Ken (talk) 03:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC) :::The Hebrew version which is discussed on that page is for the Shalom Sesame version, which mixed English and Hebrew and was specifically designed to expose US Jews and others to Jewish history and life in Israel (there's a completely Hebrew version for the original co-production, Rechov Sumsum, which is a different matter; I'll have to check with my Israeli friend on that when next he comes online). Anyway, you can take a gander at International Rubber Duckie (and if you feel like taking a stab at International People in Your Neighborhood, go ahead; if not, I'll get to it later). I was about to ask about the US "El Patito" releases, but you already noted on the article that Jim Henson did the vocals on those, which is another reason to make a distinction (I covered that in the Notes section, reserving the general release section for the Mexican version). There's still more versions to add, of course, from the international albums, and I'm going through Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting to get to the montage of international "Rubber Duckie" dubs, to try to figure out other titles, but this has several of the major countries listed as a general start. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Yeah, Paul told me that in the Netherlands, a lot of people don't know that Ernie and Bert are not Dutch characters, and I guess that's because of all the original albums they did in Dutch. (I'd love to get some, because they sound like fun from reading the summaries, but they'd be pointless to listen to since I don't know Dutch). Anyway, that's what started me thinking about the differences between the Spanish stuff that the US show did (like the entire Sesame Mucho! album, and sketches that were recorded twice like the 1-20 Indian guru cartoon), and stuff that was made just for Latin American countries. I don't know if there was a Spanish Rubber Duckie that was dubbed for the clip (I'm assuming there was, but I've never seen it). I only know Jim's vocals in Spanish, which, if you've never heard it, starts out, "Rubber Duckie, gozanos/En el bano, nosotros dos/Rubber Duckie, tu eres mi amigo". It's pretty fun to hear Jim sing as Ernie in Spanish! I wish they had done more stuff like that! -- Ken (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2007 (UTC) :::::Yeah, they did one specifically for the Latin American TV version, which was released on video back in the early 1990s and probably still shows up in rotation, but it never uses the phrase "Rubber Duckie," and it probably differs in other ways from the US "El Patito" release (I don't have that one to compare). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 04:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC) ::::::Yeah, I've wondered if there were lyrical differences. I could have sworn El Patito was on a US CD, but now I can't find it. Oh well, I'll have to send you the Sesame Mucho album. The whole thing is great! Bob and Luis doing a bilingual version of Loud and Soft is still hilarious after 33 years, and Vikki Carr doing Tu Me Gustas with Grover is absolutely beautiful. I hope Koch considers putting this one out! ::::::I'm sorry, but can you fix Rubber Duckie again? You had a stray quotation mark that made half of a paragraph all italics, so I fixed it, but then the 45 disappeared again. I promise I won't touch it again! -- Ken (talk) 04:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC) :::::::I think it's your browser. If this is the image you mean, it's still there. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC) ::::::::Yeah, I know it's still there, but before it was fine, and after I did something, I only saw the caption for the 45, not the picture. Oh well, I just wanted to make sure it was me. If it looks okay to you, I feel better. Pretty soon I'll be Ken 2.0. ::::::::I better quit talking to you before I have to type all the dots from Episode 0001! -- Ken (talk) 05:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC) Ice cream I've been lurking around all day, waiting for you to add some jokes. Thanks. Well worth the wait. Did I say thanks yet? Bears repeating. -- Mark (talk) 22:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC) :Hey, it was a great article to begin with, in classic China style. I just did some minor tweaks. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC) ::I thought it was a great article, too, and I envy you guys for being so funny when you write stuff! All I know how to do is tell you how old a record is by what color the label is. -- Ken (talk) 03:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC) Magog Heya. Sorry I haven't been in touch about the Magog issue. I sent another email about it today. I don't know what the progress is yet, but I've been told they're looking into it. There were some pretty major server problems this past week. I'll let you know when I know more. —Scott (talk) 03:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC) :I just left a note on your page about it. Can I keep the fixed version until we hear back from them? If proof is needed, that's why I took the screencap. I don't like the fact that, indefinitely, a skeleton will be stuck on that page. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC) TCM material I just thought of something. We don't have cable, so I can't do it, but is anybody going to tape the TCM stuff tomorrow? If so, can they be transcribed, since I'm pretty sure they're not going to sell them? -- Ken (talk) 03:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC) :I don't have cable either, but yeah, appearances on talk shows and the like are always transcribable (I'd tried to get the last Deal or No Deal thing for that purpose, but the DVD-RW I was using was faulty), as per the transcript policy. We just haven't done much of it here yet (Danny did several for ToughPigs.com way back). I hope somebody does, because I'd love to find out what Kermit's comments on the films and actors (most of whom have Muppet connections) are. One of my cousins has cable and adores Kermit, so I'll see if she can tape it, but given the odd hours for the showing (and she has kids to keep her busy), it's not a shoo-in. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC) ::If I have a few days warning, I can usually get network stuff. Can I mention it on Current Events? I'm assuming people like Scott and Guillermo already know about it, though. - Ken (talk) 03:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC) :::I've got the DVR set, so I should be able to post some screenshots. —Scott (talk) 05:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC) Let's sing a song of teeth! Hey, Andrew! I saw Scott working on "My 2 Front Teeth", and I had totally forgotten that The Count had sung it on the 1975 Christmas album! So now we have 2 Spike Jones songs! I know that that's still not much, but I was kind of excited about it. I picked up some movies at B&N after church (Amazing Grace 2007 and With a Song in My Heart 1952, just in case you were wondering), and I saw the Preston Sturges boxed set of Paramount stuff that's now on Universal (I hate when stuff like that happens!). Anyway, I really wanted it, but I've already got orders out for stuff like Happy Days and Newhart, so I'd better take it easy for a while. I guess you're following cartoon news, but they're already talking about the next set of Popeye, so I guess that means Volume 1 did well. And if you hear anything about the original Chipmunks coming out, let me know! (That shouldn't cost too much; it's only one year!) -- Ken (talk) 01:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC) Oh yeah, today's Mickey Mouse's 79th birthday! -- Ken (talk) 05:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC) :Yeah, one has to prioritize. One item I've really been wanting is that complete Get Smart, but right now it's on mail-order from Time Life for 200 bucks, so I'm waiting for it to hit retail in individual seasons (which they planned to do). And Mickey's had too many face lifts for age to show (I still prefer the old pie-eyed version who fought Nazis in comics when he wasn't attempting suicide, having his tail snipped off, or dressing like Minnie Mouse to drive her nuts). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC) ::Yeah, those complete series are a little too big for me. If I got The Complete I Love Lucy, I'd have to go through something like 50 discs just to find the episode where she steals John Wayne's footprints from the Chinese Theater. ::I'll take your word about Mickey doing that stuff, but I wasn't sure if you meant the shorts or comic books or comic strips. If those were in shorts, I sure don't remember seeing those on the Disney hour! -- Ken (talk) 05:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC) :::The comic strip, though some of the early black and white shorts had a more mischievous Mickey, who after all abused animals extensively in Steamboat Willie. You can find the infamous suicide strip series (a subplot in a larger storyline, suggested by Walt Disney personally, who thought they could get some "funny stuff" out of the idea) here. It's actually fairly light-hearted, most of the strips built on an ironic twist (Mickey tries to gas himself, but when a squirrel comes in and tries to inflate a balloon which pops, Mickey shouts that he's been shot; Mickey tries to jump into a river, but when a policeman catches him and threatens to toss him in, Mickey pleads with him because he can't swim, etc.) Still, just the connection of Mickey and suicide tends to be shocking (he's brought to it when he fears he's lost Minnie's affections; it's hard to imagine the current Mickey, especially in some TV cartoon, displaying such violent emotion). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Thanks for the detailed answer! I don't know a whole lot about the strips, and I've got a million questions, but it's too late for that, so I'll have to save what I wanted to say for a future phone call. Talk to you later! -- Ken (talk) 06:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC) Can you tell me how to get to The Twilight Zone? Hey, Andrew! I remembered what I was going to ask you the other night. Do you have a copy of The Twilight Zone episode "The Bard", where a TV writer meets Shakespeare? It's a 4th season (1 hour) show, and I didn't know if you had it on the box you bought. Anyway, in the first part of the show, in the first scene, and under Rod's opening narration, there's a musical cue that I swear that I heard years ago on one of the letter cartoons on Sesame Street! When I first saw "The Bard" around 1985, I almost fell off my chair, because I've had that cue in my head my whole life, and I had no idea 1) that it was on TZ first, and 2) how/why SS borrowed stock music from TZ of all places! Anyway, I figured you'd be the perfect person who could help me with this, because I've been dying to figure it out for the last 22 years! -- Ken (talk) 05:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC) :It just so happens that I do have that episode! I'm listening to the cue now. I'm not sure exactly which Sesame Street cartoon you heard it in, but it does sound familiar. I notice that for this episode, the music is credited to Fred Steiner, who had done the music for The Bullwinkle Show, Gerald McBoing-Boing Show (I think some of the stuff in "The Bard," at least, was re-purposed from Gerald's "Dusty of the Circus" series, but I'd have to check), and more. So what probably happened was that whoever animated the segment you're thinking of paid Steiner to use some of his stock cues to score the segment (in a similar way, Gumby, the early Yogi Bear episodes, TV's Dennis the Menace, and others all tended to sound alike because they used the same stock music from Philip Green at Capitol Records). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 20:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC) ::Wait a minute! You mean that composers on TZ could use music from pre-existing material?! I can't believe it! I mean, I know that most of them used stock music from the CBS music library (and the music credit in the Companion says "stock"), and then ones that had original music were used for others later on. But I've never heard of an episode that had music credited to a certain composer, which turned out to be written by that composer, but for something else! TZ music has always sounded so unique, that I've never heard of this happening before! But now it all makes sense, since it does sound kind of cartoony, and I guess Rod wanted that kind of sound for this, and that's what Fred had been doing. And I guess you're right that since this wouldn't have been TZ-owned music, that SS paid him to use it again. I also swear this was an exact same recording, not a re-recording for SS, which made the hearing of this on TZ years later all the weirder. Anyway, I'm thinking it was one of the 30 second speech balloon ones, and maybe someday you or I will run across it again, now that we now what it sounds like. Thank you so much! You made my day, and at least now I know I'm not crazy! -- Ken (talk) 22:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC) :::Well, it could possibly be the other way around, it was composed for TZ and then reused, but in this case, especially since the music was mostly just used as "cues" to punctuate a gag, I think the other is a likely theory (and there may have been some original music mixed in, but composers for TV and cartoons have been known to recycle their own cues and themes, just usually within the same show or series; I didn't listen beyond that opening scene). Also, from my research, I think at least some of the speech balloon spots were done by Ken Snyder Enterprises, the people behind Roger Ramjet, who thus would have been familiar with Steiner's work (several artists had also worked with UPA and Jay Ward). A quick check with the ASCAP lists very few themes or songs (the notable exception being Perry Mason: "Dah dah, dah DaH! Dah dah, dah DAAAAH") but an endless aray of cues, including as I'd guessed, "Dusty of the Circus." Nothing for Sesame Street, but if it was just recycled and already registered for another show, it wouldn't be. I'll pull out my Dusty tape one of these days, but I'm increasingly thinking that may in fact be the original source. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Yeah, to me it seems like the people who were doing the cartoons would have been familiar with other cartoon music, and probably didn't even know that it had been used for TZ. (That's not the first place I would think of to get music for a Sesame cartoon!) Thanks! You've already given me more to mess around with than I ever thought possible! -- Ken (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC) New milestone Hey, you think we'll get to 16,000 articles before the birthday of the wiki? I'm going to be adding some new song pages from records I just got. How are you doing on stuff like celebrities? I forgot how many we had at last count. -- Ken (talk) 02:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC) :We'll probably make it either by the deadline or just around or after Christmas, depending, with 400 articles to go now. I've been slowed down myself the last two days because the lights aren't working in my office (it's a ceiling fan/light, and the pull-cord to the latter is jammed), and it's putting a terrible strain on my eyes to do much of anything in here (Dad promised to get it fixed in the morning). We've about peaked on celebrities for now, but there's still a few, especially in the Creature Shop department or ones who aren't as high-profile (I still want to create a page for a couple of the New York Ballet dancers who've been on Sesame in recent seasons), and the new Elmo Christmas special will spawn some more pages. Plus I still have a lot of MirrorMask to mine, and plenty of Muppet Babies references to create new pages for (as well as augmenting existing ones). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC) It's a long hard climb, but I'm gonna get there! Well, with some cleanup on a French 45 (in English, no less) of the disco versions of "Doin' the Pigeon" and "C is for Cookie", I have officially hit 3,000 edits! Just when I think I've run out of things to work on, something else opens up. Have you seen the new international charts that Paul (Pino) has been working on? I love looking at the pictures, even though I don't speak any of those languages! Well, only about 475 more edits to go, and I'll make the top 10 list! And if I get rid of dial-up next year, I'll be able to edit even faster! -- Ken (talk) 22:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC) :Hooray for Captain Spaulding, err, you! Yeah, dial-up is a chore. And the international album pages are great. I still have some Plaza Sesamo video stuff to input (including one with the Spanish version of "I Want a Monster to Be My Friend," long after the bit was pulled from the US version.) -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC) ::Hey, that reminds me. Since it looks like you and I are the only Muppet Wiki people who live in the Southwest, we should pool our resources on the Spanish stuff. I can't believe that all we have is one Plaza Sesamo LP from 20 years ago, when we get the show not only on one of the main Spanish stations out here (and the shows are dated 2005-2006), but it's also on our PBS station every morning before the US show is! I can't believe there's no other Spanish CD's out here, but I've never really looked. I love watching Plaza Sesamo, since they show way more classic clips than our show does. What's hilarious for me is hearing how they cast the performers to sound like the original. I saw the one where Grover tries to sell a wig to Mr. Johnson a while ago, and I was on the floor, because it sounded like Frank Oz talking Spanish! (And of course I love seeing the translations of pre-1990 Ernie and Bert stuff!) -- Ken (talk) 23:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC) :::Yeah, I've been getting some of the older videos through inter-library loan (scanned several of the covers but haven't input them yet; I burned two to DVD for Wikifying, but can't find the others right now) and have most of the recent DVDs. I try to tape the show when I can (like you, I also get it on PBS and Spanish TV), but I keep either missing it or taping over stuff. I'm especially trying to gradually gather info on the current human characters and actors (La Abuela's the only one where I've been able to get a firm handle on both the character, from presskit descriptions, and the performers, since they did some rapid-fire recasts in the late 1990s and beyond; they kept the *characters* mostly, but changed the actors periodically). I get a big kick out of the tapes with the older soundtrack, and especially the presence of Jorge Arvizu, the Mel Blanc of Mexico (who I was able to hear, in a theater, in the Spanish version of Ratatouille, which Disney has decided to keep off the regular DVD release and has to be bought seperately). And yeah, in several cases, especially Elmo and Grover, they made a stronger effort to at least somewhat resemble the US sound than they have in other countries (though the Dutch Grover is also pretty great). I don't know about albums, but there was certainly more merchandise (for a time, in the 1990s, Applause had put out stuffed Abelardo and Pancho and so on, available with regular Sesame Street dolls in the US). I need to see if Tony has the Sesame Street Cinco de Mayo episode with Abelardo, since I'd love to have a full rundown of that. And yeah, as you've noted, they use more of the older stuff, and run Kermit bits much more often (always with a credit to Disney for the use of "La Rana Rene"). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 23:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Yeah, I saw 3 Ratatouilles on Amazon: Regular, Blu-Ray, and Spanish, and I thought it was kind of weird, because I thought a Spanish (and usually French) audio track were always on Disney cartoons. So I wonder if the Blu-Ray one has Spanish, since the Spanish one looks like a regular version. ::::I keep forgetting you're way closer to Mexico than we are. I've never seen Plaza Sesamo stuff in stores. I'd love to find Pancho and Lola puppets! ::::Do you watch a lot of features dubbed in Spanish? Our stations here are finally getting around to showing recent American films and cartoons, dubbed in Spanish, so it's not quite the endless stream of low-budget Mexican movies that I've never heard of. One time we caught part of an "A-Team" rerun, and it was a hoot watching Mr. T talk Spanish. I can never keep up when I'm watching an American movie dubbed in Spanish, because they talk too fast. I like watching movies with subtitles (either ours to theirs, or theirs to ours), because my eyes are reading, and my ears are listening, and it's fun to try to put the two together. I took like 6 years of Spanish between junior high, high school and college, and I always got A's, but I still can't think fast enough. I still feel like I'm in tourist mode. We have churches out here that do simultaneous translation during services, and it always blows me away. -- Ken (talk) 03:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC) :::::Well I did run across this Abelardo PVC figure awhile back, but the seller didn't even recognize the character, let alone list the maker, so it is sheer luck that I found it -- would that have been part of the Applause line? And I just added a couple more DVDs. Andrew would you check my spanish translations? I speak spanish competently (in theory), but bookishly, and "Lola aventuras" confuses me; shouldn't it be "aventuras de Lola"?? Is this some sort of idiomatic usage? -- Wendy (talk) 03:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC) ::::::I think Applause did make PVCs for a time, but the items I'd seen were plush. I'll have to do some digging on that score. As for the DVD title, you got it right, but I don't think it's meant to be idiomatic, at least not in the popular sense as an established grammatical variation. The DVD is titled after a recurring segment on the series (and compiles several), and I don't think it's meant to be not "The Adventures of Lola" but "Lola Adventures," sort of like "Global Grover" or something like "Elmo Party." -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC) Animated openings? Hi, Andrew! I figured you might know something about this. Now that I'm seeing one show per year on Old School, I was wondering about the different animated openings. Do we know who did those, and when they were used, and when they were dropped? I've seen one on YouTube with 2 guys arguing with sign gestures with no dialogue, Old School has some with the woodpecker, and of course #1 has the Claymation animals. Do we have anything on this? The page for the SS theme song just talks about the theme song/live action kids playing. Any help would be great! -- Ken (talk) 22:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC) :We know they were used for the first few seasons, but I don't think we know when they were dropped, and definitely not which studio did them. Though as a trivia note, some of the same openings were recycled for Sesamstrasse, with numbers and title changed, in the 1970s. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC) ::Okay, thanks! I was messing with the idea of making some kind of a timeline for the cartoon openings, but I only have what's on Old School. Maybe Guillermo and Ingeborg would have some more leads. ::By the way, I found a nice copy of What Time Is It on Sesame Street? yesterday in a bin of donated records at the library, and it was only 50 cents! I thought of your mom finding the 10th anniversary album. It was a great way to celebrate Sesame Street's birthday! -- Ken (talk) 23:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC) Gerardo Hey dude. I can't see anything at Image:Gerardo.jpg. Is it just me? —Scott (talk) 05:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC) :No, image uploading has gone wonky, not for the first time. I'll try again -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC) ::It looks like it's just upoading new versions of images right now. Can you upload it under a different filename for now? I'll shoot an email off to John. —Scott (talk) 05:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC) :::It should already be fixed. At least, it looks fine to me. Did you refresh? -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Ah, I'm seeing it now. It just took a few minutes to purge on the server side. I hate it when the images go wonky. —Scott (talk) 05:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC) :::::Yeah. And it's always in the exact same way. I wish they could find a long-term fix for it. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC) ::::::We're very slowly getting there. I have a very long list of tech problems that I'm currently following. —Scott (talk) 05:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC) Public domain? Hey, Andrew! I saw your note about Muppet Babies footage on Scott's page and it reminded me of something. How can any Looney Tunes be public domain already? I thought that 1923 was the cutoff for being public domain. -- Ken (talk) 03:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC) :There's no real cut-off date for public domain. With films, it depends basically on renewal. See It's a Wonderful Life, for example, which was allowed to lapse (thus why it aired everywhere for awhile) but later reclaimed. Pay attention to the dollar DVDs some time. Shorts like Private Daffy Duck and so on have been in the public domain for ages, because they lapsed (in most cases, some time in the 1960s or 1970s, before the advent of home video and a new source for profits), while earlier shorts like I Haven't Got a Hat haven't because they were carefully renewed (WB was more careful about their characters' debut shorts). A lot of wartime shorts lapsed, and almost all of Famous Studios output until the 1950s (Little Audrey, Baby Huey, the early Herman shorts) also lapsed. Some studios reclaimed stuff since, others didn't, especially when dealing with shorts. And copyright law has changed since then, so it doesn't happen anymore, but originally, "Works published with notice of copyright or registered in unpublished form prior to January 1, 1964, had to be renewed during the 28th year of their first term of copyright to maintain copyright for a full 95-year term." Like I said, a lot of items were overlooked or ignored by studios, and Paramount was especially sloppy, so that's why the later Famous Studios Popeyes are everywhere, but for years most of the Fleischer cartoons were unavailable due to legal wrangles. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC) Andrew Leal (talk) 03:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC) ::Thanks! I didn't know it was that complicated. I refused to buy the "junk" Popeye all those years, because I knew they weren't made from studio materials, and they usually look awful. I'm glad they've finally worked everything out and made the "real" set! I guess stuff like records has been different, because they're always out there for years and years to buy, and the only difference is that they invent new formats. But I've never heard of a recording from the 1940's or 1950's suddenly not get renewed. I guess since they have publishing rights involved as well, which sometimes involves totally different entities, more people are paying attention. ::One thing that always bugged me was having Andy Griffith be on junk tapes years ago, even though beautiful copies were on TV from Viacom, so I knew they really owned them. I could never figure out why they didn't try to stop those releases. I'm glad we finally have "real" DVD's of the entire series now! -- Ken (talk) 04:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC) :::It's the same issue. Somehow, a limited number of episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, Dick Van Dyke Show, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and others slipped into public domain, so Viacom couldn't really put a stop to them, just put out superior product. *But* somehow the loophole *only* applied to the episode content, and not the familiar theme songs which were protected seperately and still subject to royalty, which is why you'd get odd Andy Griffith and Bonanza tapes with weird banjo or inappropriate semi-disco music (the North Carolina based company UAV, who also put out a lot of PD stuff at the time, for several years managed to legally license Andy Griffith for VHS, and put out some pretty decent uncut tapes with nice trivia notes, usually themed to characters); these versions also for some reason seemed to crop up in such venues as a PBS station in NC or Christian stations which needed non-religious, family friendly filler without having to pay for it. So the stuff is definitely junk, but legal (elsewhere, though, some companies try to slip in stuff which is definitely not PD, amid the usual suspects, hoping nobody will notice, and often they don't.) -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Yeah, I'm glad that Paul Henning's estate got involved and now we're seeing authorized versions of Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. I think the only thing left of old TV that needs to get cleaned up is Amos 'n' Andy, and black and white Dragnet. I know that Amos 'n' Andy will probably never come out again legitimately, but I know that Universal owns the radio and TV Dragnets, and they've done one color set, and a lot of radio sets, but I wish they'd start doing black and white sets. I got a dollar DVD of 4 old Dragnets at Target once, just because it was a dollar, and it wasn't that bad. They even had the cigarette commercials, which I love, and the disc included the Christmas show where somebody steals a baby Jesus statue. Unfortunately, that one was B/W (even though it was filmed in color, and the episode even says it's in color in the end credits!), but it was fun to see the TV version of that episode, since I knew the radio version. -- Ken (talk) 06:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC) Ron White awards? Hey Andrew -- if you have a moment, can you look at Talk:Ron White?? You wrote the original article; Nick is asking about the source for the Gemini nomination for Ace Hart. -- Wendy (talk) 01:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC) Where's Spike? Hey, Andrew, I figured you'd be the one I should ask about this. How come we have a page for Stan Freberg, but not for Spike Jones? Since Sam & Friends acted out the "Poison to Poison" sketch, I think he should at least have a small page citing his influence. What do you think? -- Ken (talk) 05:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC) :Hi, Ken! I'd love to have a Spike Jones page, and we probably will eventually, but I'm not sure we have enough material right now. With Freberg, we know of three recordings (including both his vocals and re-writing) which were used on Sam and Friends, we have the telegram, a song he co-wrote was used on The Muppet Show, so all in all, it's an in-depth page. With Jones, though Jim probably used more than one recording on Sam and Friends, all we have is "Poison to Poison," which isn't the Jonesiest piece. We know it came from Spike Jones in Stereo, so presumably Jones himself approved it and *proabbly* had some involvement, but I don't know precisely what. The page currently claims he wrote it but in fact I'm no longer sure on that score (He wrote much of the group's material, but so did some of the performers Weaver always scripted his own routines, and gag writers were occasionally used; I haven't been able to find anything which nails down who wrote that sketch); he provides no vocals (the whole thing is instead a showcase for Paul Frees, who does have a page accordingly), and the band's involvement (again, assuming he used his group, which is a fairly safe assumption), is minimal. So there's not a lot to say about it that isn't already noted on the Poison to Poison page. If we could dig up a few solid quotes (I know The Works cites Jones in passing as an influence on Henson, but it would be nice to be more concrete there), it could work, but right now, there isn't much to say. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 18:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC) ::Speaking of Poison to Poison, could you take a look at its talk page? I discovered a spelling difference on the record. On top of that, the track on the LP is credited to (Brandt-Jones), so I'm trying to figure out if that's Carl Brandt or Eddie Brandt. I figured you might have something in case I didn't. Thanks! -- Ken (talk) 05:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC) :::Definitely Eddie Brandt, who collaborated with Jones many times. I'm glad you were able to check on that. I'm still not sure it's enough just yet for an interesting Jones page, but concrete information is always a good start. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 06:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC) ::::Yeah, I guess if we only have the one record, that's about it. Oh well. Thank you, (fellow) music lover! -- Ken (talk) 07:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC) Whattsamatta U.? Thanks for Jay Ward! I love having you here! -- Ken (talk) 23:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC) :Thanks! I was hoping that would make some people happy. P.S.: It's "Wossamotta U," that institution of learning whose history books still claim that McKinley is President. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 18:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC) ::You mean he's not? -- Ken (talk) 03:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC) Hey, Andrew! I love your picture! Who is it? -- Ken (talk) 05:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC) :Thanks for letting me know it was William Demarest. I thought it was him, but I wasn't sure. :By the way, I sent you a birthday gift and message on your profile page. -- Ken (talk) 02:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC) Educational Materials Hey Andrew. I have a vague memory of somebody talking about educational materials at some point, but I can't find it; was it you? Or do you have any advice on where to put such a thing? I've discovered that a company called "General Learning Corporation", who did teacher training, provided educational kits and promoted technology in the classroom, made a couple series of "phonograph viewer" sets in 1970; One for letters, one for numbers. They're like Show 'n Tell things only minus the brand name. From the one picture I've found as well as a listing in worldcat it looks like they used some of the early animation sequences ("Countdown for the Rocket", "Boy fishing for letters"). Anyhow I'd like to make a page but am unsure if we ever did make a spot for educational stuff or if we should start one... -- Wendy (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC) :Hi, Wendy! We don't have a category right now, but I'd think "Educational Materials" is a good name. Though I'd also think the category would definitely need a definition (since a lot of Sesame stuff could be considered "educational"), or maybe create an article on General Learning Corporation. Beyond this stuff, what else have you found, in terms of on-Sesame Workshop kits and materials, stuff which other companies and curriculums have put out using Sesame characters oe films? If nothing else yet, I'd say create the company page. Stick in Category:Sesame Street Misc. Merchandise for now, but maybe it would be worthwhile to collect these things *and* the kits officially put out by CTW/Sesame Workshop (though my own inclination would be to keep them seperate, but maybe cross-linked). That's a larger question worth asking on Current Events. -- 20:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC) Needle nardle noo, to name but a few! Yay! I was hoping that someday we'd find a way to get Harry Secombe on the wiki. I can't believe you found him! That's fantastic. Ying tong iddle i po. -- Danny (talk) 03:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC) :I was hoping you'd spot it. Not as good as a direct guest appearance, but still pretty wonderful. I've come to think of that as the best part of Muppet Babies, the often completely random use of outside film footage (I've tracked down two episodes so far with Lon Chaney Sr. as the Phantom of the Opera). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 03:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC) animation buff Heya! I thought you might like this, but also may be able to identify the vintage cartoon footage used with the monkeys and giraffes. It looks familiar to me, but I'm not sure what it is. Also some sweet references to Popeye and Bugs Bunny. —Scott (talk) 05:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC) :Ooooh. Great find. It references Rocky the Flying Squirrel too (which, combined with George of the Jungle, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watching an Aesop and Son, as well as some nice artist connections, should justify a Jay Ward page). I'm off to bed soon, but I'll create a Popeye page in the morning (there's another visual reference in another Muppet Babies episode, and a verbal one in a Sesame episode). As far as the vintage cartoon footage, I'll have to research further and maybe consult with some people. All the cartoon footage seems to be public domain, not surprisingly (there's a recognizable snippet of an Ub Iwerks' Flip the Frog cartoon near the end), so my own guess would put it as possibly an early Van Beuren, Iwerks, or Terrytoon (clearly *not* Fleischer), but so many early cartoons used jungle settings and musical moments that it would take some extra work to pin it down. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC) Image:Officerfuzzy.jpg Hey dude. Can you try uploading this again? It looks like leftovers from the issues this morning prevented this one from saving properly. —Scott (talk) 19:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC) :Ah, the joys of Wikia bugs. It looked fine the first time, I checked, but something must have happened inbetween. I added it again (the Australian Dog City DVD came in the mail today, and it plays fine on PowerDVD, with no region code adjustment required even). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC) ::Looks good now. And hooray for multi-region DVDs! —Scott (talk) 21:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC) Internat'l stuff I don't know if you have Power Point installed on your computer, but I stumbled across this which I thought you might find interesting. —Scott (talk) 23:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC) :Neat! It helps put some dates to things, pinpoints how early the Northern Ireland project has been under consideration, and gave me a lead on the unrealized Sesame Neighborhood project, which I need to make a page for. Thanks for sharing! -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC) Andrew's talk archive *Muppet Wiki Talk Archives